Posts Tagged “Salinas vegetable shipments”
California’s Salinas Valley vegetable shippers were shipping good volumes by late April an this trend continues with favorable weather. Meanwhile, truck shortages and record rates persist.
Shippers are still a bit skeptical about what lies ahead for the the second half of the season due to uncertainties relating to the pandemic.
Pacific International Marketing of Salinas reports a cooler than normal spring, but supplies have not been interrupted.
Compared with the start of the COVID -19pandemic, Coastline Family Farms Inc. of Salinas had not problem planting for the first half of the Salinas season. Now it is evaluating what it wants to do for the second half of the season.
Beyond acreage reserved for contract sales, Coastline also has a little extra acreage for open market and for whole distribution. Still, some growers are being cautious. The company lost significant acreage last March due to the the shutdown of the foodservice business.
Pacific International is expecting foodservice shipments to gradually return and be back in full force by the end of the year.
Coastline notes cauliflower contracts have been expanded this year, and foodservice demand in general is climbing back.
Some foodservice customers also are taking more mixed loads rather than straight loads, limiting their buying while demand improves.
While dozens of different vegetables shipments are coming out of the Salinas Valley, lettuce easily leads in volume (with mostly Iceberg and romane) averaging about 1,900 truck loads per week, followed by broccoli with around 270 truck load weekly.
Truck rates remain on record tracks!
Salinas Valley vegetables – grossing $11,000-plus to New York City.
Shipments of lettuce and other leafy greens are shifting from the California and Arizona deserts to the short Huron, CA, season, with the Salinas Valley season just getting underway this week. Some caution is urged in loading head lettuce, which has quality problems.
Markon Cooperative notes in its weekly Fresh Crop Report, lettuce prices are steady and supplies are strong as consumer demand is rising with more restaurants opening.
USDA reports both romaine and iceberg lettuce prices have nearly doubled in the last month.
Romaine, green leaf and spring mix supplies are very good quality, Markon reports, while iceberg lettuce has some issues with frost, mildew and wind-damaged outer leaves. It is recommended your receiver be alerted while still at shipping point the condition of the lettuce.
The transition from the desert areas to northern California growing areas occurs every spring.
California/Arizona desert lettuce and other vegetables – grossing about $6100 to Chicago.
Here are shipping updates on Mexican and South Texas sweet onion shipments. We also update Western vegetable shipments transitioning from the desert areas to up north in Salinas Valley. Finally, it appears Florida blueberry shipments will be good despite a killing Southeastern freeze.
It is the tail end of Mexican sweet onion shipments out of Mexico crossing the border in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Still about 400 truck loads should cross the border next week, and perhaps the week after that. Meanwhile, South Texas sweet onion shipments have been underway for several weeks and will continue for a few more weeks.
By contrast, in New York, steady loadings of storage onions are occurring from Orange County, but volume is less than 150 truck loads a week .
Onions from the California desert get underway from El Centro around April 18 -20.
New Mexico onion loadings from the southern part of the state will start at the end of May or early June.
The nation’s biggest volume shipments of onions are from storages out of the Idaho, Eastern Oregon area, amounting to about 875 truck loads per week.
Idaho, Malheur County, Oregon onions – grossing about $3000 to Chicago.
Mexican tropical fruits and vegetables – grossing about $3000 to Chicago.
Salinas Vegetable Shipments
The transition from the deserts of California and Yuma, AZ are starting, but this is going to require some patience on the part of produce truckers. With the desert areas wrapping up shipments early and Salinas vegetables getting a late start, this simply means SHIPPING GAPS!
Florida Blueberry Shipments
A freeze that swept through an estimated three-quarters of Georgia’s $400 million blueberry crop around St. Patrick’s Day could turn into an Easter boon for Florida blueberry shippers.
Florida skirted the most damaging parts of the cold wave that enveloped the Southeast and wrecked much of Georgia’s blueberry crop, with temperatures reported in the low 20s.
However, Florida dodged the bullet, with only minimal damage in Gainesville and north/ Blueberries grown south of I-4 are fine.
At Wish Farms in Hawthorne, FL, located east of Gainesville, temperatures dropped to as low as 28 degrees F., but it emerged relatively unscathed.
Florida’s peak shipments for blueberries are during April and May. How much? Good question. Whether the Florida blueberry industry is embarrassed with their production compared to larger producing states, or they are just secretive isn’t clear. You just don’t see volume statistics readily available.
California citrus shipments are getting back on track after days of rains. Meanwhile, weather is expected to have a significant impact of Salinas vegetable shipments, but not affect California almonds, nearly as much.
The effects of the rain in citrus groves about a week ago, which hinders harvest and shipments when the ground is too muddy, could have been worse. It helps we are talking citrus and not something more perishable like strawberries (See March 1st report). Of note as we’ve previously reported, orange shippers had a bigger-than-normal pre-Christmas loadings, shipping about 30 percent of crop before the holiday, compared to a normal 20-25 percent. This is expected to result in season ending shipments occurring earlier than usual.
While harvest and shipments have been significantly slowed down, with it being too muddy for heavy equipment, the citrus industry is estatic over the great improvements in the water supply. Even better, the excess rain has not created any quality-related issues – thus far.
Southern California oranges and specialty citrus – grossing about $3600 to Chicago.
Vegetable Shipments
Vegetable growers love the big rains that have recently occurred, but the trade off is plantings have been delayed in the Salinas Valley. This will be some shipping gaps, which will be felt even more because vegetable shipments from the California and Arizona deserts are going to end early than usual.
Not only are Salinas Valley spring vegetable shipments to be later this year, but there’s an excellent chance yields will be off due to wet-weather planting and generally adverse conditions. This of course, will translate into fewer vegetable shipments.
Imperial Valley and Yuma vegetables – grossing about $4600 to Atlanta.
Almond Shipments
Because of recent rains and storms in the San Joaquin Valley, some almond trees were blown down by strong winds recently. However, tree losses aren’t as bad as initially feared and optimism continues for good shipments when the season starts the latter part of August.
Mexican Grape Shipments
It’s a bit early, but initial estimates for the Mexican grape shipments are expected to be pretty much on time, which should mean fruit starting to cross the border at Nogales in late April.
Desert produce shipments are winding down headed towards an earlier-than-normal finish out of the Arizona’s Yuma district and California’s Imperial Valley.
Volume is already very light on broccoli and cauliflower from the desert regions. Meanwhile, those same items are getting an early start from the Salinas Valley.
Salinas vegetable shipments started with very light volume a week ago, and it will the week of March 16th before broccoli and cauliflower start hitting good volume.
Meanwhile, a similar situation exits with lettuce ranging from Iceberg to romaine and leaf lettuce, which are winding down in the desert areas….To bridge the gap between the desert areas and Salinas, there is about a three-week shipping season out of the San Joaquin Valley’s Huron disrict. However, there’s going to be a shipping gap as Huron lettuce shipments won’t get underway until the week of March 23rd.
Meanwhile, shipping gaps with head lettuce, romaine and leaf that were common during the desert winter shipping season are expected to remain in play through March and into April as Salinas starts shipping.
California/Arizona desert vegetables – grossing about $6500 to New York City.
Salinas/Santa Maria vegetable shipments – grossing about $4500 to Chicago.